About six or so months ago, one of my girlfriends that I met in first grade, and we don't keep in touch. Like regularly, but when we do keep in touch, it's like time hasn't passed and she reached out about six months ago to see if I wanted to do a mud run and being the person who comes on this podcast every week and gives you ways that you can become more involved and meet new people and do new things.

I do the same thing. I say yes to things I haven't done before. And I thought, Hey, let's add this to the list. So it was my girlfriend from growing up and then friends of hers that I hadn't met.

And so it was really fun, not only to do this mud run together, but to meet new people and enjoy  a morning and an afternoon creating new friendships. So I do practice everything that I preached to you here on the so now a podcast.  One of the things that I really took away from the mud run, there's actually a couple of things I'm going to talk about. If you watch or you subscribe to my YouTube channel. You might have seen the post  about the mud run. I was covered in mud talking to you and reflecting on what a beautiful day it was. So if you haven't watched that, go to my YouTube channel, Lana dot Manitowsky, check it out and watch it there.

And then I'll  piggyback on that for this week's episode of the podcast.  This was an event only for women. There were all ages, sizes, races.  I felt like the energy was so high. There was this awesome DJ.

 So much energy people like in team shirts and outfits. We wore pink tutus and had tank tops, made for the run.  Everyone was  super festive and the race, it was actually a obstacle course race, so there were parts where you were like literally hip high in mud and then you had to climb up this mud mound and then get down the other side and there were women helping each other out like no tomorrow.

 Women on their own teams, but then I would help someone. And then the person behind me would happen when I would go over and it was just like really awesome to see. And also, like, there were times when there was no one there and I needed a little help. And I was like, Hey, girl, can you help me out?

And there was just like, so much energy and camaraderie  watching Hundreds of women work together and do this mud run together. So I first wanted to just tell you how beautiful it was to see and notice that, especially in a world where we often hear about how people are so siloed and not interacting with each other.

I was able to just feel so energized being part of that environment  at the mud run. And what I want to talk about today on the podcast really came to me on the final obstacle of the run. I believe there were 17 obstacles and the final 1 was a challenging obstacle. There were these,  think of seatbelt material, kind of like crisscrossed and then you had to climb up this.

Wall essentially, where you're like, legs could like, easily fall through your arms could fall through and then you get to the top and then you hit the summit and go across. So you're looking down and the earth is below you and there's just these, like, straps basically there to hold you.

 Then when you got to the end, you would go down and  you'd be, basically at the end of the race. So it was challenging and it took some skill. So it wasn't like people were like flying through there. So there was like a backlog of people waiting to go and take their turn up.

So then they can go to the finish line and they timed it. So. They would put you in heats of going. So it wasn't like everyone was like a free for all., they would, line everyone up and then they would say, go and then they'd wait for everyone  to basically summit and go down the other side and before they had the next group going.

So I got there and everyone was kind of like, lined, lined up waiting. 1 single person left and she was about to hit that summit that went over and she was just there and like frozen. I wasn't up there yet. So, don't know how it felt, but, it clearly was a challenging obstacle.

She had a friend who was on the other side of the summit, trying to, like, talk her through it, I couldn't necessarily hear her, but you could hear her, like, trying to encourage her to go. And then the crowd started cheering. And if she made like a little move, people would be like screaming for her and cheering for her and clapping.

And she just was frozen. She made a little bit of a move and then she was just like idle. And then. A woman went up and was trying to like coach her and help her through and talk to her.  Were behind waiting to go up, we could only see  her back and back of her legs  and she was  shaking.  There was, a couple of times where the crowd cheered, and I was thinking to myself, I so want her to finish.  I want like her to be courageous and go and do it, even though she's like scared anyway. I wanted her to do it. And then when she came down, she decided that she, it wasn't for her. She got to the ground and she just like, went running in the opposite direction. And you could tell she had been crying. And then I was like, Oh my God, I feel so sorry for her. And then I'm sitting there thinking, and I'm like, Wait, this woman just decided this was not in alignment with her.

 Summiting this thing and  the climbing and the whatever was going on through her mind.. She was not in alignment with that thing. And why am I  feeling sorry for somebody who was listening to herself and to her needs and what she knew she was capable of at that moment. That doesn't mean that she couldn't try it again and who knows what she's been through, but in that moment, she was listening to herself and she knew that that just was not for her.

 It got me really thinking about stopping IVF or stopping treatments, because I can't tell you the amount of women  I have worked with who I have talked about making that decision to stop and how hard that decision is and how you second guess yourself and ask, what if that next time that I would have said yes to would have been my time. It really made me take a opportunity to stop and  revisit that for myself. Even though the doctor told me it probably wasn't going to be a better outcome if I did my next round of IVF. There were times that I was like, what if, and so watching her stop, when her body was telling her this is it, like, this doesn't feel right for you. This isn't what you want. You don't feel called to cross this line in this summit. So listen to yourself and what if that's what we did, imagine that you could still feel proud of yourself. We had just completed  16 other obstacles, there was some pretty intense moments in that obstacle course. That she finished. She got to this final obstacle and because she turned back and decided that that wasn't what she wanted to do; she still has 16 other things that she fricking slayed that she did to get to that point. Imagine that being us in our journey and all the things that we tried to become pregnant - the treatments and the acupunctures and Reiki's and the prayers and the everything's that we did.

Are we saying those weren't things to be proud of and things that we overcame and showed up being brave and. In alignment with ourselves at that point, and then when this final opportunity comes to say,  I'm done and my treatments are over, are we going to allow ourselves to believe that we can't be proud of who we are for what we've done to get to that point, but also proud that we're listening to ourselves. There's not enough.

Focus and not enough conversation around how important it is to respect your needs as a woman and respect your needs as a woman with infertility on this journey, because none of it feels great. Okay,  none of it is  exciting to do a cycle and none of it's like, oh, my gosh, that was the best thing in my life.

But when we've gone through these things multiple times, and we know that we are just at a point where we're like, listen, it's too much. Either my body doesn't, it doesn't feel right. My body, my body just can't take anymore. Or maybe it's emotionally. You can't take anymore and the ups and the downs and the preparing for the next phone call that this cycle wasn't successful or that  your frozen embryos are  not viable and not available to be implanted. there's so many things that don't feel good to us. So we know. We may think that we don't know, but our body tells us when enough is enough. And I just wanted to represent or recognize that this week, and she was a representation,  her saying no. And her being in alignment with herself and choosing not to finish the race and not getting the metal that said mud girl run is not as important as her saying, you know what?

This isn't for me. And that's what I want us to be able to look at in our journeys and feel really fricking good that we said no, when enough was enough for us. Not like it's a easy thing.  Maybe it was for you. It wasn't for me, but I think we  innately know when our journey has come to an end and we  are at that point and for the women that are listening to this, that maybe are still going through treatments, listen to yourself.

All I want to say. It's not going to be an easy decision when you decide that your journey to seeking motherhood is finished. But know that if you're disappointed, you don't have to be disappointed forever. And I think that's the narrative that so many of us don't hear. We think that we have to live the rest of our lives feeling disappointed that we didn't summit that final obstacle in our fertility journey that would potentially have then resulted in a child.

We don't know. What if you did four more rounds?  There's no saying there are no guarantees what would have worked. So why don't we just decide that when we tried all that we thought we could, and we listened to our bodies and we say, you know what, this is it. Can we say, I'm going to be disappointed.

But at some point in my life, I want to be proud of myself for listening to what I needed at that time. So that's what I have for you this week. And it's something that I really want you to think about and maybe reconsider what you've been telling yourself about stopping your journey. And we can even elongate that into choosing not to do an egg donor or choosing not to adopt.

Can you be proud of yourself? That you knew that those things weren't right for you and that they were not what you envisioned your journey to or your definition of motherhood or having a child would be. And that's it for some people that works for them, that for some people that's in alignment with them.

For some people that's what they were seeking. But if it's not what you were seeking, it is okay. And you can be so proud of yourself. For knowing that and not adopting because you think it's the right thing to do, because that's what people expect of you or doing an egg donor because your partner thought it was a good idea, or you thought that that was something that you had to do in order to prove.

That you would stop at nothing, it wasn't in alignment with who you are. So I'm going to leave you with that and just tell you that you are so amazing and you don't have to summit. The mountain or finish the last obstacle to be worthy and respected and admired in my book, because I really admire that woman who decided to stop there.

And so much so that I'm talking about her on my podcast. I wish I knew her name. I wish I could tell her how proud I am and in admiration of her for listening to herself and her needs. So have a beautiful week. I love you. And remember, it's never too late to discover your meaning and I'll talk to you next week.